Twenty20 cricket - 6 tactics for winning

Is Twenty20 cricket nothing much more than a slogathon, a sort of cricketing version of a bar room brawl? Or is it a cricketing version of speed chess?

When Michael Clarke was appointed the Australian captain (temporary?) for the Twenty20 match against New Zealand at Perth, Ricky Ponting applauded the choice on the grounds that Clarke was an ‘instinctive’ cricketer whose instincts are generally correct. The implication in this (and I trust I am not drawing too long a bow) is that the Twenty20 game is so fast that decisions must be ‘instinctive’ than carefully worked out along tactical lines.

Michael Slater endorsed this approach to the game when he introduced the game on Channel 9 by describing Twenty20 cricket as ‘rock n roll cricket.’

But when he discussed with Adam Gilchrist what instructions he’d been given, Gilchrist said that he was told to take as many singles as possible. This suggested to me that the Australian coaching staff has worked out a form of tactical approach to the game. Which in turn suggests that the speed chess analogy is probably the correct one.

The Twenty20 game involves the batting side having 20 overs to score a total. Bowlers are only allowed four overs each which means that five bowlers at a minimum must be used. There are restricted field placings for the first six overs. But within this restriction there is no requirement for any fielders to to be placed in a catching position.

Now for some tentative thoughts, very tentative it must be emphasised, towards an understanding of a tactical approach to Twenty20 cricket.

1. The approach of the batting side should be to score 9 runs an over. This would provide a total of about 180 runs which would generally be defendable.

2. Bill O’Reilly claimed that the 50 over one-day format was biased towards batting. He argued that a team of 11 batsmen should be selected, with the batsmen having instructions to hit everything all the time. The 10 overs allocated to each bowler though somewhat scuttled the theory. A great bowler, or a good bowler having a great day, has sufficient balls (60) to take up to five wickets. But in the Twenty20 game this is not possible. Bowlers have only 24 balls each to bowl whereas a batsman may have up to 60 balls to face. It is the Twenty20 game, therefore, that is the loaded towards the batting side.

3. Fast bowlers and spinners are more effective in the Twenty20 game than medium-pacers. As the Australian fast attack demonstrated at Perth, the fact that each bowler had only 24 balls to deliver allowed the quickies to let fly right from the beginning. And the NZ spinners were more effective than the side’s medium pace bowlers because they took wickets and were able to place fields that covered the big outfield at Perth more effectively than the medium pacers could.

4. With the relative innocuousness of the medium pacers it seems that it might be better to stack a side with batsmen, allowing for only three front line bowlers say. It is hard to dismiss a side, 10 wickets required in only 120 balls, so batting sides can afford to keep hitting relentlessly. Bowling sides should rely on the three front line bowlers to keep the batsmen honest. Captains should perhaps experiment with most of the side having a bowl, working on the theory that mediocre bowling is about as ‘useful’ as ordinary medium pace stuff.

4. On field placing, I’d place my fielders inside the circle, or on the circle line itself. This would mean that the only close catcher, apart from the bowler, is the wicket-keeper. Having the inner ring fieldsmen on the circle should mean fewer fours and probably fewer singles. The thought here is that any ball that is restricted to a scoring shot of one run is a victory to the bowling side, and any scoring shot above two is a victory to the batting side.

5. To bat or to field if the toss is won? Always bat, in my view. The batting side has the opportunity of setting a target. Conversely, the bowling side confronting a side batting first does not know how valid that target will be. This poses questions about which bowlers to use towards the end of an innings. The side fielding second has no such doubts. It knows the target. It knows how the opposition is progressing towards the target. It can, therefore, use its bowling attack in the most effective way possible in preventing the target being reached.

6. All the batsmen should be capable of hitting sixes. I don’t know what the statistics are but I’d be surprised if the side that hit the most sixes didn’t win most of the Twenty20 matches. And the biggest hitters should be relatively high in the batting order. NZ, for instance, bats Jacob Oram too low.

Twenty20 cricket is a newish form of the game. It will be fascinating to see how tactics specifically applicable to the form evolve. So far, I believe, not a great deal of thought has gone into developing specific tactics.

Let’s start this interesting process here.

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